AuthorTopic: Georgetown Waitlist (Read 34157 times)

Hey everyone.. I'm waitlisted at Georgetown and accepted at GW (with a scholarship). My stats were 3.78/167. Anyway, I'm trying to decide how much I should suck up to Georgetown - I haven't done anything yet, and I found out about the waitlist in January. It's just hard to think about turning down money at GW - they are both good schools and even though G-town has a better reputation, I don't know if it would be worth it. The question for now, though, is what, if anything, should I send to Georgetown? Advice?

i'm also waitlisted at gtown; i'm on the priority waiting list. how about you?

from what i hear, starting in april, gtown admissions'll be sending out emails to all the people on the waiting list, trying to assess whether we're all still interested in attending gtown.

the first thing you and i should do is reply, letting them know that we're still very interested. and upon replying - i was informed by an admissions person who works at gtown that - we should contact the admissions office, either by phone or email, every week following receipt of email, letting them know about our continued interest in gtown's program.

this is important, because when the admissions board looks over our files again - assuming spaces are available - they'll ask the admissions office how many times applicant A, or applicant B has contacted the admissions office concerning his/her status. If you've contacted the office many times - let's say 40 times - this will likely reflect well on your interests in attending gtown and will most likely positively affect how the board reviews your file...keep in mind, every time you call georgetown, they will make a note of it on your admissions file. so if you call 40 times, they will have documented evidence that you in fact called 40 times.

so yeah, hope that helps...also, since schools are interested in keeping up their yield rate, if you let the admissions office know that you'll attend gtown without a second thought, if accepted, that might help make you a more appealing candidate to accept.

Hmmm.. I've heard the same thing. I've also heard that you get a "point" every time you contact a professor or anyone else there. I'm actually only on the General waiting list (I applied Early Action). I'm thinking about writing a letter now, expressing my continued interest, and then reiterating that in April. In the meantime, I will end up giving my deposit to GW I suppose. Do you know who you'll commit to in the meantime?

By the way, I've also heard that G-town, more than other schools, uses their waitlist as an admissions "tool" - meaning that they are usually pretty conservative with initial acceptances, and end up using their waitlist more often than others do..

I think you're right about Georgetown using their waitlist as an "admissions tool." They admitted 50 people off the list last year - a phenomenal number compared to the number of students other top schools typically accept off their wait list.

by the way, how does gtown keep track of the number of times wait list applicants contact professors at gulc?

and to answer your question, I'll most likely commit to Boston College in the meantime...I'm not too happy about that cuz i want to go to school in LA. I'm hoping to get into either USC or UCLA, but I haven't heard back from them yet.

I'm not sure what exactly you are looking for in terms of confirmation that there are indeed two waitlists, but maybe my insight will help. In one of the rudest worded letters imaginable, Georgetown informed me that not only was I not quite qualified enough to be offered admission, but nor was I qualified enough to be placed on their Preffered waitlist. They did however place me on their "secondary" waitlist, just in case they can't fill their incoming class with students of their admitted and preffered waitlists. They told me (only slightly more eloquently) that while preferred applicants can expect to hear somewhat shortly after the reponse deadline, in late April, May or as late as June, applicants such as myself that are on the secondary waitlist should not expect to hear before August, and could hear as late as the first day of classes and not to get my hopes up.

So, rest assured- it is not a ploy. There are indeed two waitlists!

(Sorry if you sense any bitterness- I don't even really want to go to Georgetown, and would actually prefer to go to GW, but the rudeness of their letter has left a strong distaste in my mouth for the school).

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skotval

When you guys say you are on the waitlist for Georgetown, did you get the email from them asking you to send more information and confirm your interest? I received an email from the admissions office a couple weeks ago saying that in a normal year I would have had an acceptance letter by now, but this year they have so many applications so they wanted me to send them any additional information I had and let them know that I was still interested in attending Georgetown. They said they would get back to us this week (week of March . Is anyone else in this similar situation?

gulc sent you that email becuz you're probably overqualified to attend gulc. and by overqualified i mean you probably have a lsat score and a gpa that're quite far above the median lsat score and gpa at gulc. so what gulc is trying to do - by sending you an email - is to make sure you're likely to attend gulc if accepted. cuz if you're set on attending a school like harvard, yale, stanford, or any other top ten school, gulc will likely not want to extend you an offer, so to protect their yield rate - which is the percentage of students who matriculate out of the total number of students who're accepted. and gulc's hoping that if you're set on attending another school, that you'll kindly relay that information via email.

"the higher the yield rate, the higher the prestige" is one of the ways usnews calculates a school's ranking...check out yale's yield rate. for fall 2002, yale gave out 256 acceptances, and out of that number 191 matriculated. (75% yield rate) stanford on the other hand gave out 423 acceptances, and had 170 students matriculate. (40% yield rate) as you go farther down the rankings, the percentage of matriculation to acceptances gets lower and lower. (for example, for fall 2002, gulc accepted 1942 students, and 450 matriculated; a yield rate of 23%)...

so...in short, gulc's trying to get their yield rate up...that's why you received the email. so if you really wanna attend gulc, let them know when you reply. and if you're set on attending another school, then give them that information. and if you wanna keep your options open, then pretend you wanna attend gulc, even if you really don't want to.

1) G-town Waitlist: I am still on the general waitlist, and yes, I will also confirm that there are indeed two waitlists, however I read a quote from Andy Cornblatt in a book saying that they take people off both lists. I think they usually take more off the preferred list, but this is good so I'm not necessarily doomed. I've heard that there could be up to 200 people on each waitlist, and that in any given year they will take on average 30-50 total, including people from both lists.

Also, I know someone who was moved from the general to the preferred list a few years ago, so that happens too. I have a feeling that having a "preferred" list might be some kind of political ploy on their part - rumors from a former admissions employee that if you have a letter or rec from an important person you may get put on the "preferred" list, maybe just to make your recommender feel better. In the end, they don't even number their waiting lists, so it's all a crapshoot

2) GWU v. GULC: I have been talking to a lot of lawyers, etc about the difference between these two degrees, and everyone tells me that the basic difference is job placement, but that if you work hard at GWU, try to get on law review, get decent internships, etc that you can do anything a G-town grad can. I have a scholarship to GW, and the students seem to be really happy there, so I'm excited to go, but I'm planning on studying pretty hard.

3) Yield rate: Just a note that U.S. News stopped using yield rate in their formula last year, because too many schools were becoming obsessed with early decision programs, which guaranteed them higher yield